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The Forests of Silence (book)
The Forests of Silence is the first book in the Deltora Quest series by Emily Rodda. The cover art displays Gorl and the Topaz. It is the only book in the series divided into two distinct parts; Part I: The Belt of Deltora, wherein the story is told from Jarred's point of view, and Part II: Under the Shadow, which begins the main story of the series, with Lief as the protagonist. Plot Part I: The Belt of Deltora The first part of The Forests of Silence,The Belt of Deltora, describes how the Shadow Lord took over the land of Deltora. The prince at the time, Endon, was good friends with Jarred, the son of a palace servant that had died while in service to Endon's father. Jarred had been given to Endon as a companion to keep him from getting lonely. They had grown up together almost like brothers. By then, the royal family had unknowingly been corrupted by their chief advisors, who were in reality the Shadow Lord's servants. It was the rule never to venture from the palace, and the Belt of Deltora was to be worn only on the day that the heir to the throne became king or queen. When Endon's parents died of illness, he was forced to become king at an early age. Being obedient and quiet, he had never questioned the rule, and was an easy victim of the treachery of his chief advisor, Prandine. Jarred, on the other hand, was reckless and restless, and longed to see the city of Del, leading to his doubt of the rule's wisdom. He began to suspect Prandine of treachery and searched for evidence that the rule was corrupt. He went to the library for research and found The Belt of Deltora, a book containing information about the Belt of Deltora. He learned that it was Adin's original intent for the king or queen to always wear the belt and never let it out of their sight. Jarred tried to show this to Endon, but Prandine prevented him from doing so, and accused Jarred of attempting to murder Endon. Jarred, seeing that Endon believed him, fled from the palace and was taken in by a blacksmith, who trained him to be a blacksmith as if he were his own son. Before leaving, Jarred left a note in code for Endon saying that, should he ever need him, he would only have to shoot an arrow in the branches of a tree and he would come. Jarred married the blacksmith's daughter, Anna, and many years passed. One day, however, Jarred found an arrow in the tree and found a drawing and poem drawn by Endon in his childhood describing how to enter the palace using a passage secret even to the chief advisors. Endon had finally realized that what Jarred had said was true, but it was already too late: the Shadow Lord had already sent his Ak-Baba to steal the gems from the Belt of Deltora and scatter them throughout the land, eliminating Deltora's only protection. Endon and his wife, Sharn, disguised themselves as Jarred and Anna and stayed in Del, while Jarred and Anna pretended to be Endon and Sharn, fleeing from Del and going into hiding. Not even Endon's son, Lief, knew that his father was really Endon and not Jarred, as he believed him to be. Part II:'' Under the Shadow'' Part 2 of The Forests of Silence, Under the Shadow, describes how Lief finds the first gem missing from the Belt of Deltora, the Topaz. On Leif's sixteenth birthday, he along with Barda, a former palace guard, left Del on a quest to restore the Belt of Deltora by finding the gems. Lief's parents gave Lief a sword, forged by his father, and a cloak, made by his mother. Lief and Barda then head off to the Forest of Silence, but are closely followed by a unit of the Grey Guards. When they catch wind of the guards right behind them, they run off the trail and go into a path of the forest which had a sign saying that it was too dangerous for them to enter. When the guards caught up to the sign, they failed to follow them. Lief and Barda noticed that the guards weren't following. They were then attacked by the Wenn. When Leif and Barda regain consciousness, they found that they were paralyzed. Eventually, a girl named Jasmine came and attempted to take Leif's cloak. After a brief discussion, they ran from the Wennbar. The trio would then return to Jasmine's tree top home. After that Jasmine agreed to show them the way to the most dangerous location in the Forests of Silence. A place called "The Dark", where a formidable former Jalis knight clad in golden battle armor, named Gorl, resided. They reached their goal, but Jasmine said that she couldn't go further. Gorl had created a dome of vines to protect what he thought Lief and Barda wanted to steal: the Lilies of Life, fabled magic flowers said to give eternal life to the one that drink it's nectar. Gorl wanted to drink the nectar and rule the seven tribes of Deltora, but he had been in the Forests for so long that he had never heard about the first king, Adin. Gorl uses his powers to control Lief's will and draws him towards himself. They fight him, and they almost fail. But Barda suddenly spotted two bodies in armor like Gorl's. But Barda had a plan. He tried bringing up the subject of the bodies, and they find out that it was Gorl's companions. Gorl didn't came alone to the Forests, but with his two fellow knight brothers, Greddock and Gudden, as told in the true Tenna Birdsong Tale, The Tale of the Three Knights. They fought over the Lilies, but in the end they we're killed by their older brother Gorl. As Gorl lost focus grieving over the death of his brothers, his grip around Lief weakened and when Barda's stabbed by Gorl as he tried to pierce Gorl's neck with his sword, but it went through the opening in the armor and did nothing. In the end Jasmine comes to their rescue, persuading the tallest tree among the vines to sacrifice one limb in return for freedom. The tree obeyed her, dropping a large branch on Gorl and wiping him out. They find find that there's no body inside the armor, and that it was only darkness and a strong will that kept him alive. When the sun shone on it, it couldn't survive. Lief when runs to Gorl's sword and takes the Topaz from it's hilt. But when he see Barda's corpse. He uses the nectar of the Lilies of save him. Lief and Barda when show the Topaz to Jasmine, which takes it in her hands but suddenly the place is filled with mist, and a pale figure of a woman appears. The spirit of Jasmine's dead mother. Her mother asks her to go with Lief and Barda to rid the land from the Shadow Lord and when vanishes. Lief puts the Topaz in the Belt of Deltora and together he, Barda and Jasmine - and Filli and Kree - sets out on the quest to free the land of Deltora. Debutes * Endon * Sharn * Jarred * Anna * Min * Prandine * The seven Ak-Baba * Barda * Lief * Jasmine * Gorl * Filli * Kree Notable Events * the story of Endon and Jarred is told, * The Rule is explained * Two deaths of two antagonists in two different parts * the Belt of Deltora is broken and remade, * the seven Ak-Baba are sent to scatter the seven jewels across the lands, * All seven locations are said by Jarred * the quest is embarked * Jasmine defeats the Guardian * the first member of the Jalis tribe is shown, Trivia * This is the only book in the Deltora Quest series that is divided into two parts. * This book has the most debutes in the series, only rivaled by The Shadowlands. Category:Books Category:Deltora Quest Category:Deltora Quest 1